


Give it Time

by LureSanta



Category: As the World Turns
Genre: Angst, Lure Santa Exchange 2010, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-23
Updated: 2010-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-14 00:25:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/143304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LureSanta/pseuds/LureSanta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gift for moonlessky, created by glitterfey - Posted Deceber 23</p><p>Luke lives as best he can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Give it Time

Luke spent his days going through the motions. He was a shell, a front, a disguise of a functioning man, a man who ran a company, who sat on a board, who cared for his siblings and his parents. He was commended for how well he coped, lauded for his strength in adversity and his ability to carry on. He should have been rewarded for his acting, the strength of his façade, but nothing else.  
Luke didn't want to dream. If he dreamt, it'd be of Reid, and the only way he could live without his lover was to barely live at all. Luke didn't want to die, be the Romeo to Reid's Juliet, but some wounds were too painful to heal. Knowing Reid's heart was still beating was too much to take, and so he didn't take it at all. He worked until he couldn't, took enough pills to ensure an empty four hours' sleep, and he did it all again the next day. It wasn't living, but it was his life, and he did what he could to survive, until he couldn't anymore.  
It was public and painful, dramatic and everything over the top a collapse in Old Town should be. Gaze turned skyward, he laid on the damp pavement while Casey and the EMTs hovered around him. He could have gotten up, but he didn't.  
The sky was beautiful.  
The doctors used phrases like exhaustion and self-harm and attempted suicide, but being in the hospital meant being where Reid had been, and that felt worse than any ailment could. So as soon as he was able, Luke checked himself out, rented a car, and drove away.  
Everyone mourns the one who dies, but few remember to mourn the one that's left behind.

It was the same hotel, the same room, and after a deliberate moment, the same towel thrown on the bathroom floor. Luke wasn't tired, but he was desperate, and so for the first time in 97 days, he let himself dream.

"It took you long enough."  
Luke stared into Reid's eyes, too shocked to move, to speak, to breathe.  
"Oh, yeah, that's a side effect. You can't touch me, and you can't speak to me. You can breathe, though, dumbass, and you should think about doing that."  
Luke breathed. And breathed again.  
"So look," Reid continued, "the deal is we've only got a little bit, and whether or not we get another chance at this hasn't been decided yet." Reid glanced skyward and then rolled his eyes. "You'd think I'd get more respect up here, and yet everyone seems to defer to the big guy. It's heaven, and a man can't even get a decent sandwich. Why don't you people understand the wonder that is mayonnaise?"  
Luke kept breathing.  
"God, Luke, you look amazing." Reid sighed, moving next to him. "I'm not great at this, and I know you know it already, but I love you, so, so much. More than anything I'd ever known. You changed me. Maybe not completely for the better, because a sappy Reid Oliver is a disgusting Reid Oliver, but--shit, Luke, you were it for me. You were my forever, and I’m so sorry that this happened."  
"I've been watching you, you know. You kind of suck at taking care of yourself, and to be honest, it's pissing me off. I want you to thrive, Luke. I hate that you have to do it without me, but watching you destroy yourself is worse than my own death. I want you to be Luke Snyder, big time writer who thinks of me fondly from time to time, not Luke Snyder, the next Natalie Wood."  
Reid smiled. "Things aren't bad up here. I ran into Marie Curie the other day. She's a real bitch, you know? And after meeting Brad Snyder, I kinda get why Katie and Hank hang out. Thank god, though, that Jacob takes after her, because no godson of mine is going to be as stupid as Brad. He mentioned he was shot--by another Snyder, which, by the way, sounded like an awesome story you forgot to mention--but in my expert medical opinion, I'm pretty sure it was the dumb that killed him."  
Another sigh, and Reid continued. "You're not here for chitchat, and as much as part of me wishes you were staying, I'm mostly glad you're not. You were my forever, Luke, the one for me. I--fuck," Reid breaks off, standing up and pacing. "Luke," he begins again, kneeling before him but not touching, "Luke, I'm not your forever. I can't be. You can't live the rest of your life in mourning. I'm not worth that, but more importantly, you're worth more than that."  
"You made me into a good person, Luke, a person that deserved to have your love, to be with you in every way possible--" Reid grins salaciously and continues, "--and trust me, the sex would have been amazing--but beyond that, your love was the highlight of my life. I need, you need, for my love not to be the highlight of yours. There's so much you can do, Luke, so many people you can touch, and there's someone out there for you to spend your life with. You're not a loner, Luke, and nothing would make me sadder than to see you spend your life alone because of a freak train accident. You're better than that, Luke, better than me, and I need you to move on and be happy."  
Reid again looked skyward and cringed. When he looked back at Luke, his eyes were frantic, pleading. "Luke, there isn't much time. Promise me, promise me that you'll always love me, but that because you love me, you'll take care of yourself, start to live again, someday be happy. I need to know that, Luke, I need to know that you're going to be okay and happy and survive, because I couldn't take it if you weren't. Someday, Luke, someday we'll be together again, I swear it, and when that day comes I'll be right here, waiting for you, always, always I will, but Luke, I need you to go on. You're my forever, Luke, and I need you to be that, a living forever, for a very long time."  
Luke didn't speak, couldn't, but the tears on his cheeks matched the ones on Reid's, and without words, he promised Reid everything he could.

Luke woke up, and he drove home.  
He wasn't any different. He wasn't the same.  
He lived, because that's what he had to do, a promise he had made, a promise he would keep. He didn't marry, because some promises trumped others, and he'd promised Reid his heart well before Reid's went to another.  
But he lived. He was happy, as happy as he could possibly be, and things were all right. Okay. Fine.  
The shipping company flourished, Oakdale Memorial had the best neurosurgery department in the country and Worldwide inexplicably launched a perfume line. Luke watched his parents marry again, and divorce again, and his grandmother and her beaus and Jack and Carly did the same. Casey and Ali made it stick, and then they didn't, and it turned out only Henry and Barbara seemed to avoid the need for lawyers. Ethan came out, and so did Jacob, and no one cared. Babies were born, and people died, and weddings and graduations and funerals, successes and failures came and went.  
Luke and Noah were best friends.  
So he lived, unspectacularly, for 20 years, and just shy of his birthday, his transplanted kidney failed.  
Luke was happy.  
He denied another transplant, decided to forego dialysis, checked into Oakdale Memorial and waited to die.  
There was nothing easy, or beautiful, or redemptive about his choice. He was in agony, and people cried and begged him to take a transplant, take dialysis, take control of his life and live, just promise to live.  
But Luke had made that promise once, and to him, 20 years seemed like long enough to keep it.  
He waited six days in the hospital, and then it was over.

Luke opened his eyes, expecting the same whites and shimmer of before. The face of his beloved, his one dream come true.  
He saw blackness, darkness, nothing.  
For the first time in a long time, he cried. Tears for his past, his present, his future, his dreams and his reality, all crushed in an instant.  
And then he heard it.  
"Oh, shit, Luke, don't cry! I was just fucking with you! It's heaven, it's all good, you're good, you're here, I'm here, don't cry, please, please, don't cry!"  
And when he turned around and saw Reid, face ashen and eyes afraid, looking every bit the handsome man he'd left behind so many years ago, Luke did the only thing he could.  
He laughed, and smiled, and finally, he lived.


End file.
